High-rise housing havens

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

But "2-3 story cracker box apartment complexes built in the 60's, 70's and 80's" is not alliterative, is it?

Kidding aside, yes, there are some cases where low rise structures will have 20+ units but that seems outlier-ish? Either way, I don't think the census tracks floor count.

I’d wager that the majority of 20+ unit complex units across the entire country are in such low rises, not mid or high rises. Nearly every three story suburban apartment complex everywhere qualifies.

The title of this thread is clickbait.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I’d wager that the majority of 20+ unit complex units across the entire country are in such low rises, not mid or high rises. Nearly every suburban apartment complex everywhere qualifies.

The title of this thread is clickbait.

I'd wager that every high-rise housing structure in the country is a 20+ unit building.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I'd wager that every high-rise housing structure in the country is a 20+ unit building.

Some logic for you:

Every residential high rise is a 20+ unit structure, but not every 20+ unit structure is a high rise.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I'd wager that every high-rise housing structure in the country is a 20+ unit building.

That seems likely, but what we need is a breakdown of how many of these units actually ARE in high-rises, cuz it sure ain't 100%.

Take my neighborhood of Lincoln Square: it has 3,484 units in 20+ unit buildings (16.5% of total units), and yet not a single building over 6 stories tall.

This is very common out in Chicago's non-lakefront neighborhoods.


I mean, DC came in 3rd place on your original list, and it's an entire city famous for not having any highrises at all!

[SIGSEGV]

commie blocks are (usually) not highrises but usually 20+ units. probably 80% of Bucharest lives in 20+ units.

[austlar1]

Twenty units is nothing for most of the new apartment construction happening all over the sunbelt, and most of the units are in large four or five story buildings usually built around a central parking structure. Yes, there is a lot of highrise construction in some of these cities (like Atlanta or Austin), but their share of the 20 plus unit category is just a fraction of the overall total.

[mhays]

There are lots of <20-unit highrises. Some have huge units, and some are housing on top of other uses like hotels.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by mhays

There are lots of <20-unit highrises. Some have huge units, and some are housing on top of other uses like hotels.

Very fair.

I amend my statement:

Even if all residential high rises were 20+ units, not all 20+ unit residential structures would be high rises.

In the messy real world, I’d wager only about 5-10% of all residential units nationwide are in 20+ unit high rises. I’d also wager that only about 15-20% of all 20+ unit residences are in a non-low rise (5-12, 13+).

[plinko]

20 units is easy. On a 75-100ft wide lot that totals about 1/2 acre you can easily build a 3 over 1 with a parking podium that isn't even maxxed out and get 24-28 units. If you can get rid of the parking (still difficult but does happen) it's even easier.

I've got three of these that I designed under construction right now in a city that up until recently had a 48ft height limit for these types of buildings (Santa Barbara).

Nothing high-rise about it.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by plinko

20 units is easy. On a 75-100ft wide lot that totals about 1/2 acre you can easily build a 3 over 1 with a parking podium that isn't even maxxed out and get 24-28 units. If you can get rid of the parking (still difficult but does happen) it's even easier.

I've got three of these that I designed under construction right now in a city that up until recently had a 48ft height limit for these types of buildings (Santa Barbara).

Nothing high-rise about it.

In my area it's common to build 40+ woodframe units on 5,000 square feet.

[mhays]

High rises must account for a tiny percentage of the overall housing stock. Let's imagine the median major league city has 100 residential highrises (*) and they average 300 units. That's just 30,000 units in a city of 1,000,000 or 1,500,000 units (meaning metro).

* The number would vary depending on whether we're using the technical code definition (top occupied floor starts above 75', meaning about 85' or 90' total height) or the higher versions we get on SSP.

[Notonfoodstamps]

Originally Posted by mhays

High rises must account for a tiny percentage of the overall housing stock. Let's imagine the median major league city has 100 residential highrises (*) and they average 300 units. That's just 30,000 units in a city of 1,000,000 or 1,500,000 units (meaning metro).

* The number would vary depending on whether we're using the technical code definition (top occupied floor starts above 75', meaning about 85' or 90' total height) or the higher versions we get on SSP.

I'd imagine metrics would use this as cutoff as high-rise as thats officially codified.

There used to be a list of cities by +35m buildings. Once you get into ~3 million MSA range (and larger) you'r talking about hundreds to several thousand of buildings in that height range.

That said office vs. residential vs. mixed-use would really start to muddy the usage metrics.

[mhays]

That's an option. It's an inflection point that offers starkly different options on a cost/return spreadsheet. We get relatively little residential development that's just a floor or two into highrise code, making a natural breaking point.

However from an urbanist perspective a neighborhood full of 75' buildings or one full of 100' buildings might not be that different, except in shades of intensity. Many things change when buildings of 200' or 400' are scattered around. I see nothing wrong with setting an arbitrary height for a discussion.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

While looking at the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates of housing characteristics for the "missing middle" housing thread I noticed that 41% of housing units in Atlanta are in 20+ unit structures. I've spent some time in Atlanta so I know that there are a lot of residential towers, but I didn't realize that Atlanta is in the top tier of major cities when it comes to share of 20+ unit structures of the overall housing distribution.

20+ unit %age of overall housing units, 2024 5-year estimates

49% -- New York City
49% -- Miami
42% -- Washington, D.C.
41% -- Atlanta
39% -- Seattle
34% -- Minneapolis
32% -- Denver
31% -- San Francisco
30% -- Los Angeles
28% -- Boston
28% -- Dallas
27% -- Houston
27% -- Chicago
26% -- Austin
24% -- Portland
21% -- San Diego
19% -- Nashville
19% -- San Jose
18% -- Cincinnati
18% -- Charlotte
18% -- St. Louis
18% -- Cleveland
18% -- Milwaukee
17% -- Pittsburgh
16% -- Phoenix
15% -- Philadelphia
15% -- Baltimore
13% -- San Antonio
13% -- Detroit
13% -- Fort Worth
12% -- Columbus
12% -- Jacksonville
11% -- Buffalo
10% -- Las Vegas
9% -- Indanapolis
9% -- Memphis
9% -- Louisville
8% -- Oklahoma City
7% -- El Paso

20+ unit count, 2024 5-year estimates

1,798,615 -- New York City
465,392 -- Los Angeles
344,544 -- Chicago
281,073 -- Houston
164,135 -- Dallas
153,057 -- Seattle
151,740 -- Washington, D.C.
127,505 -- San Francisco
126,088 -- Austin
121,126 -- San Diego
116,142 -- Denver
112,704 -- Philadelphia
109,314 -- Miami
107,951 -- Atlanta
103,883 -- Phoenix
86,324 -- Boston
82,593 -- San Antonio
72,524 -- Charlotte
72,426 -- Portland
70,258 -- Minneapolis
66,942 -- Nashville
64,455 -- San Jose
52,310 -- Columbus
49,925 -- Jacksonville
47,222 -- Fort Worth
45,615 -- Milwaukee
44,366 -- Baltimore
44,096 -- Detroit
36,414 -- Indanapolis
35,419 -- Cleveland
31,286 -- St. Louis
29,143 -- Cincinnati
27,988 -- Pittsburgh
27,140 -- Las Vegas
25,337 -- Memphis
25,206 -- Louisville
24,919 -- Oklahoma City
18,615 -- El Paso
14,696 -- Buffalo

Atlanta's unit count is not as dramatic when looking at raw 20+ unit count, but it is on the short list of U.S. cities where the count of housing units 20+ unit structures is larger than the count of 1-unit, detached (single family) housing:

Cities with more 20+ units than single-family, detached units

• Atlanta
• Baltimore
• Boston
• Chicago
• Miami
• New York City
• Philadelphia
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• Washington, D.C.

Atlanta as a metro doesn't hold up as well in the share of 20+ units of total housing units.

20+ unit %age of overall housing units per MSA, 2024 5-year estimates

29% -- New York City
28% -- Miami
19% -- Los Angeles
19% -- Washington, D.C.
19% -- Seattle
19% -- San Jose
18% -- San Francisco
18% -- Minneapolis
17% -- Denver
17% -- Austin
16% -- San Diego
15% -- Boston
14% -- Houston
14% -- Chicago
14% -- Dallas-Fort Worth
14% -- Milwaukee
14% -- Portland
12% -- Las Vegas
11% -- Atlanta
11% -- Phoenix
11% -- Cleveland
11% -- Nashville
10% -- Philadelphia
10% -- San Antonio
9% -- Charlotte
9% -- Jacksonville
8% -- Baltimore
8% -- Columbus
7% -- Pittsburgh
7% -- Detroit
6% -- Cincinnati
6% -- Indanapolis
6% -- Buffalo
6% -- St. Louis
6% -- Louisville
6% -- Oklahoma City
6% -- El Paso
6% -- Memphis


20+ unit count per MSA, 2024 5-year estimates

2,355,577 -- New York City
927,194 -- Los Angeles
757,102 -- Miami
560,241 -- Chicago
472,680 -- Washington, D.C.
442,819 -- Dallas-Fort Worth
419,928 -- Houston
346,835 -- San Francisco
317,249 -- Seattle
313,431 -- Boston
278,414 -- Minneapolis
276,616 -- Atlanta
268,741 -- Philadelphia
225,812 -- Phoenix
220,786 -- Denver
202,203 -- San Diego
172,524 -- Austin
144,662 -- Portland
134,155 -- Detroit
133,277 -- San Jose
110,745 -- Cleveland
110,333 -- Las Vegas
104,872 -- Charlotte
101,913 -- Baltimore
100,824 -- San Antonio
97,260 -- Milwaukee
96,644 -- Nashville
84,736 -- Pittsburgh
77,210 -- St. Louis
72,430 -- Columbus
63,997 -- Jacksonville
61,363 -- Cincinnati
57,332 -- Indanapolis
37,306 -- Oklahoma City
36,148 -- Louisville
33,397 -- Buffalo
31,960 -- Memphis
19,447 -- El Paso

[mhays]

Very interesting!

Seattle's 39% and 19% should be easily 40% and 20% in 2026. Buildings over 20 units are our largest development type.

(How do the five-year estimates treat housing inventory...is it really 2024 alone or are they doing a five-year average like with other topics?)

It's interesting that places like San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, and especially Miami had most of their 20+ units outside city limits (three being tight city limits). Others like Chicago and Houston were mostly inside. Seattle was more even, but there were a bit more outside.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mhays

(How do the five-year estimates treat housing inventory...is it really 2024 alone or are they doing a five-year average like with other topics?)

I think the 1-year doesn't include smaller municipalities, so it's not as reliable as the 5-year for estimating at the metropolitan level.

[mhays]

Yes, but are they using the five-year process to arrive at a realistic 2024-specific number, or is it really more like a 2022 number due to averaging the five years? IIRC, the latter is basically how they do it on some topics. I'm trying to use this as a basis to guess what 2026 might be.

It'll be interesting to watch the numbers grow. Big multifamily has taken off in most cities. The trend might continue due to development costs, interest rates, reduced sprawl (due to busier freeways, land use policy, etc.), and easier infill (as some places encourage it more), even while net households have hit a barrier.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mhays

Yes, but are they using the five-year process to arrive at a realistic 2024-specific number, or is it really more like a 2022 number due to averaging the five years? IIRC, the latter is basically how they do it on some topics. I'm trying to use this as a basis to guess what 2026 might be.

It'll be interesting to watch the numbers grow. Big multifamily has taken off in most cities. The trend might continue due to development costs, interest rates, reduced sprawl (due to busier freeways, land use policy, etc.), and easier infill (as some places encourage it more), even while net households have hit a barrier.

To my understanding... I think it's more accurate to say it's a generalization of a 5-year period ending in 2024. So it's representative of what generally happened in a specific area at any point between 2019 and 2024. So if the first half of the period was slow, but the second half experienced a building boom, then it might understate the more recent years of the period (and vice versa).

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by JManc

The term "high rise" is doing some heavy lifting for Houston MFH because a tiny % actually live in high rises with the vast majority live in 2-3 story cracker box apartment complexes built in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

I'm not disputing your percentages, but it misses the reality of so many residential highrises in Houston, particularly in Uptown, Greenway Plaza, Museum District and Montrose, River Oaks, and Allen Parkway. I think Tanglewood as well, although I don't know the boundaries of that district. These are impressive highrises. But yes, they're way outnumbered by all the garden style complexes that have yet to be torn down.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

But "2-3 story cracker box apartment complexes built in the 60's, 70's and 80's" is not alliterative, is it?

Kidding aside, yes, there are some cases where low rise structures will have 20+ units but that seems outlier-ish? Either way, I don't think the census tracks floor count.

20+ units isn't an outlier at all.